Write to Properties File in Java without knowing it's path - java

I am loading my properties file using the class loader as follows.
Properties prop = new Properties();
prop.load(MyClass.class.getResourseAsStream("/Property.properties"));
Now, using this method I am able to read the properties file. I want to write some data to the property file. I don't know the path of the property file. How do I store the data to the property file then ?
Update
I tried the following, but it doesn't give me the correct path:
File propFile = new File("Property.properties");
System.out.println(propFile.getAbsolutePath());

I don't think you can in a generic way that would always work, because your properties file could be bundled inside a jar, etc. You can get the URL via getResource(String) and then do something with that URL, for example if it's a file URL, you could get the file name there.
URL u=MyClass.class.getResource("/Property.properties");
if ("file".equals(u.getProtocol()){
File f=new File(u.toURI());
}
But that wouldn't work in all cases.
I would write the modified value to a file in a well known location, and use the bundled Properties as the default value, that are overriden by the values in the file.

There are two parts to your question.
First, the reading part. You said: "I am loading my properties file ..." using the code you provided. This code treats the file as a "resource" and loads it using the class loader. The class loader mechanism in the Java Runtime comes into picture here. Roughly speaking, this mechanism searches for it in your application's current classpath and makes the input stream associated with first matching resource available to your code. It may be fine in your case, however, you should realize that if there are multiple properties files by the same name in different parts of your classpath (e.g. different JAR files having the same config file), then you may not know which file is being read. The only way to ensure that you are reading the right file from the classpath is to ensure that you have that config file in a unique place in your application's classpath.
This seems to work for you. Reading from a file is easier, than, say writing to a file.
In the second part, you want to write to a file. It's important to note that you should know the exact whereabouts of the file you are writing to. If you rather unknowingly convert it to an output stream, then you might end up trying to write to a stream that you are not allowed to write to. So, here, you should try to find the location (path) of the actual, physical file, for example, on a computer's hard drive. That path is something you should know before you write and run this program. Remember that a file always exists in a folder or a directory.
Your attempt:
File propFile = new File("Property.properties");
System.out.println(propFile.getAbsolutePath());
to find the location or path of the file you want to write to fails because when you do new File("Property.properties");, Java tries to refer to a file (does not do anything yet with the operating system) that resides in the Java Runtime's current working directory. This refers to the location given by System.getProperty("user.dir"). So, your propFile refers to a (hypothetical) file in that folder and the call to getAbsolutePath() prints its path. This is not the file that you want because you are trying to write to a file whose path you don't know. So, you should find the path of the file and then use a BufferedWriter backed by a FileWriter or BufferedOutputStream backed by a FileOutputStream to write to this file. Make sure that the file you want to write to exists and you have permission to write to it.

Essentially get the resource as an OutputStream, then pass it to the store() method of your Properties object.
Details here:
http://www.drdobbs.com/jvm/readwrite-properties-files-in-java/231000005

Related

Java FileNotFoundException when trying to read txt file from resources folder

I'm trying to read a text file located in src/main/resources/test/file.txt. I'm trying to get the path of the file using String path = getClass().getResource("/text/file.txt").getFile(); but when I try to read it I get a FileNotFoundException. I tried putting many different paths, all of which failed. How can I go about doing this?
The idea of putting something into the src/main/resources tree is that it will be copied into the JAR file that you build from your project. It will then be available to your application via the Class methods getResource(String) and getResourceAsStream(String) methods.
When you are running in your application in the development environment, it is certainly possible to use FileInputStream etcetera to access the resource. But this won't work in production. In production, the resources will then be inside your app's JAR file. FileInputStream cannot open a JAR file and its contents by name.
When you do this:
getClass().getResource("/text/file.txt");
you get a URL for the resource, which will look something like this:
jar:file:/path/to/your.jar!/text/file.txt"
It is not possible to turn that into a pathname the FileInputStream will understand. Whatever you try will give you a FileNotFoundException ... or something that is not the resource you want to read.
So what to do?
You have a few options, depending on your application's requirements.
You can use getResourceAsStream and use the resulting input stream directly.
You can copy the contents of getResourceAsStream to a temporary file, and then use the pathname of the temporary file.
You can create an application specific directory (e.g. in the user's home directory) and extract the file you need from the JAR into the directory. You might do this the first time the application runs.
You could open the JAR file as a JarFile and use that API to open an InputStream for the resource. But this assumes that that the resources are in a JAR ... and on some platforms (e.g. Windows) you may encounter problems with file locking. (And it would be a bad idea to attempt to update the resource in the JAR.)
Try giving complete path of the file from the disk.
C:\Users\MyUser\Desktop\file name with extension

What if values in properties files are subject to change?

I have read that files within a jar file are not supposed to be modified, and I think that explains why getting an outputStream is not as simple as getting an inputStream calling getClass().getResourceAsStream() to read a file. When using properties files values are going to be retrieved during execution, but what if those values are subject to change? It would be tedious to recompile the program.
In my case those values are IP address, username and a path to an external file. So I guess I could not move the external file even by accident because my properties file in the jar have a different path to that file. Is this the way is supposed to be or is there a more flexible way that I am not aware of?
Usually property files are located outside of jar somewhere on production system's classpath. Values are usually changed once in a while via provisioning scripts / manually and then only application restart is required, not a re-compile.
So, to sum it up, I'd suggest not having properties file inside the jar.

how to read config.properties j2ee

I need to read in config.properties for some configuration.
I am open to any way of doing it, with requirements.
I want it outside my war file so that it can be changed easily, and does not require a rebuild.
I have searched everywhere but cannot find how to do it, I'm sure this is java 101, but I cant figure it.
I have tried classloader but that seems to only load resources from inside the war, and I cannot find how to get the location I loaded the war into my server from to read it from there.
I also cannot find a way to pass in an argument via command line parameter's as its a soap endpoint, which I can access anywhere in my code?
I saw this Where to place and how to read configuration resource files in servlet based application?
and i want to use the file system approach but I don't want a hard coded path for the config file.
I just want something simple and easy, I know there is something but I just cannot find it.
use this this is helpful your question . i think.
In one method abcd
public static String abcd(String one) {
properties = new Properties();
properties.load(<classNmae>.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("AppResources.properties"));
return properties.getProperty(one);
call this code
String fileLocation = abcd("internal property file");
Properties properties = new Properties();
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(fileLocation );
properties.load(fis);
fis.close();
acd = (String)properties.get("acd");
Note:
AppResources.properties have external file location D:/aaa.properties file
then in second method you read properties of external file
I want it outside my war file so that it can be changed easily, and does not require a rebuild.
May not be how you want it, but just to answer this, we have a similar scenario where our web applications are deployed in web servers located in locations /apps/servers/webserver-1, /apps/servers/webserver-2. And we have properties placed in some other locations like /apps/my-web-app1/app.properties and /apps/my-web-app2/app.properties.
Now good thing about this structure is that if I need to update any property, I just do the edit in the relative property and restart my web server. A downside of this is that I have to pass in paths to these properties file as system arguments to my web-server startup scripts (in my case, these are the catalina.sh files, yes I am using tomcats).
So my catalina.sh has line somewhere lying around something like
export JAVA_ARGS `-Dpath.to.properties.of.my-web-app2=/apps/my-web-app2/app.properties` ....
To read these properties, I have a Property Utility function that gets called by the StartupServlets of each application. The purpose of this function is to simply open up this file by reading the system property path.to.properties.of.my-web-app2 and puts these properties in something like a cache (a HashMap in my case) from where I can access them easily throughout the application.

OpenNI: Recorder create function and .oni file creation

This might be a silly question but I am new to OpenNI. Using the OpenNI-Linux-x86-2.2 package.
When I use Recorder.create(String filename), does it create the file or use a pre-existing file? I am asking because I can't find anything which creates .oni files other then making a blank file with .oni suffix (which feels risky).
If it uses a pre-existing .oni file, how do I create one?
The API seems unclear.
Also, is filename just the name without the .oni suffix? (as in, always same directory and not relative/absolute filepath or something)
After playing with it a little I reached the following:
filename is the file path just like when creating java.nio.File objects using the File(String pathname) constructor
If no such file exists, it creates one.
It works even if a pre-existing file is already there, did not get around to testing if it overwrites it or if it writes at beginning/end

Creating a standalone package in java and take some settings from the configuration file

Anyone plz let us know what to do when we have some configuration file which is basically xml.I want to for example give the path to save the image(for my java program) in a folder from some config file (xml in my case).In that case where should the config file be kept.Rt now every thing is converted to jar file when i create a java standalone package.But i want to give some setting from xml file.What to do in that case.How is it possible.This article only provides to create a single jar file for java project but talks nothing about the configuration settings that u can provide from some external source.
Regards
Sagar
I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but if it is where to put the XML file with configuration information, you can place your xml file in the same directory as your jar file, and then pass the XML file name and path into the Jar on the command line when calling the Jar. If you're running it in Windows, this is often done using a shortcut. Then you can get the full path string for the Jar from the main method's String[] arg array that accepts the command parameters.
Sagar,
The fact your java program is a standalone package (.jar file) has no bearing on where your configuration file is stored. Your java package is a program and that program can read any file from the file system that it so desires; it does not have to be part of the code inside the IDE i.e. you don't have to write it when you write the program. What you do need is some way, when you start the program, to find and read said configuration file.
Depending on how you expect the program to be configured, you might put that file in a number of locations. For example, /etc/yourimageprogram/config.xml or c:\program files\yourimageprogram\config.xml or perhaps c:\users\Sagar\Application Settings\yourimageprogram\config.xml. Which you choose of those options really depends on what the use case is and that I can't help with.
However, there are some main points to reading any file:
Does it exist?
Are we allowed to open it for reading?
Are we allowed to open it for writing? Might want to know if we want to update the config?
In Java, typically, you would test this with:
File configfile = new File("C:\test.xml");
if ( configfile.exists() && configfile.canRead() )
{
// read the file
}
else
{
// decide what to do if no config exists.
// might be first run of app.
}
The next stage is to parse the file. There are a number of parsers available for XML including sax and org.w3c.dom. What you need to do is to use these to extract the information you require and store that in a class. Probably a singleton class as you're unlikely to have multiple configuration instances per instance of the program.
I suggest you read about XML Parsers and File Handling under Java. Also look at the File object. See all your options for file io in java. These should give you some indication of how to proceed.

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